We’ve used several weather sites and apps over the years in helping us predict when we get to go fishing in our driveway. Yep, we’re well into the season of higher tides and southerly winds. “Yuletides” measuring close to 13 feet will be gracing our shores starting on Christmas while the dreaded King Tides (my definition is over 13 feet) start up later in January.

BDB compiles several different government weather sources to come up with the Barking Dog warning…

A “barking dog report” means that we are very closely watching the sound and preparing to possibly flood. It may or may not happen (hopefully not!!). Consider us your neighbor’s barking dog who’s barking at potential trouble.

This has me wondering if there are any free sites/apps that can provide all the info you want in an easy to understand format. It’s a safe bet that most weather sites are pulling their stats off of NOAA satellites/beacons so it’s just a matter of which site/app works for you. Here’s a few freebies that stood out to me…

Predict Wind includes a robust amount of weather info (includes predicted wave & tide heights) but totally whiffed in predicting our last big blow in November. They claim that their custom report/models are used by America’s Cup & Volvo Ocean sailors more than any other forecast applications. They’re predicting that we’ll be seeing peak gusts of 50 knots around 9:oo AM tomorrow…

iWindsurf was recommended by a neighbor and is now my go-to app. It accurately predicted our last couple of windy days off of Alki Pt. This snapshot of their Prediction Table is showing steady wind of 21 knots with peak gusts to 48 for tomorrow at 5:00 PM.

Construction for placing a permanent diesel generator at SPU Pump Station #39 is well under way. It’s the last of 9 pump sites recently granted a permanent solution for keeping the sewage flowing during a power outage. Several other sites around the city require portable generators to be hauled in during outages.

This project required a City Council vote early this year to approve the proposed “shallow” set-back from the sidewalk. The proposed location of the generator is actually a compromise helped along by effected neighbors that didn’t want the generator located further up the hill. Their first choice, along with others along the drive would be to have the entire project located underground. This would cost approx 3 times as much as the proposed so it appears a fair compromise was worked out. Other compromises worked out by our local neighbors include an eight foot wood fence rather than the standard 6′ chain-link and that the generator is only run/tested once every month for 30 minutes rather than the weekly noise which is standard elsewhere.

Rumor has it, some neighbors were actively working on making this one of Seattle’s new “pocket parks“.

The station was originally installed in 1959 and is located on city of Seattle property.

I was caught on the West Seattle Bridge late this afternoon in an amazing display of Mother Nature’s force. It was more rain, wind and water than I have ever witnessed on the bridge. I’m very glad to be home!

Mother Nature’s elements are lining up for quite the show after mid-night tonight & through Friday afternoon. A marine forecast calling for near gale force winds combined with tides ranging from 6 to 10 feet is the recipe for huge spray coming off Beach Drive bulkheads. Unlike last December’s storm which flooded several homes along the coastline, tomorrow’s tides are several feet lower.